212 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



tion of the above abstract, which declares that the purer the 

 blood the more likely it is to be represented in the produce. 

 This is well exemplified in the experiments of M. Malingie 

 on the sheep, to which I have already alluded. This gentle- 

 man, being anxious to improve the old French breed by cross- 

 ing it with the English ram, found that it took several gene- 

 rations to effect his purpose, because the French sheep is of 

 a much older and purer stock than the modern and improved 

 English breed. By the time, therefore, that he had obtained 

 the desired form, the produce inherited so much of the Eng- 

 lish constitution as to be totally unfit for the French farmer. 

 But by breaking down the purity of the blood of the French 

 ewes, by first of all putting them for two or three genera- 

 tions to French rams of as dissimilar breeds as could be found, 

 he arrived at the following satisfactory result. On taking an 

 ewe the result of this French crossing, but still possessing all 

 the peculiarities of her race, being of small size, of late ma- 

 turity, and little disposition to fatten and crossing her with 

 a Leicester ram, the lambs at once showed the size, form, and 

 disposition to fatten of their English sire, and yet retained 

 the constitutional peculiarities of their dam to such an extent 

 as to bear the climate and food of France. This experiment, 

 therefore, goes to prove that the greater the purity (or an- 

 tiquity, for in our present discussion they are synonymous 

 terms) of the breed, the more likely it is to be represented 

 in the cross. Consequently, a bitch of pure blood that is to 

 say, one bred for some generations from sires and dams of a 



